Summary

Across a century of chaos and upheaval, follow three generations of heroes who will change the face of China forever.

A young boy on the run from the Communists that murdered his family must survive in the harsh Tibetan wilderness.

A grandmother and leader of the underground railroad must face her dark past as a young revolutionary.

A brilliant but brash colonel races to uncover a shadowy conspiracy that threatens to tear the new republic apart.

When a Jasmine Revolution sweeps away the brutal Communist regime, China transforms into the world's first AI-driven Direct Democracy, ushering in a golden age of peace and prosperity. From the earliest days of revolutionary fervor to the turbulence of war and rebellion, the powerful Zhang family is at the center of the storm. Now when protests and terrorism bring ultra-nationalism storming back, the nation's favorite son, Colonel Ju-Long, must uncover the traitors in his midst before his beloved country explodes into another civil war.

Interesting

WritingTo start with the book had me vexed as to what it wanted to be to start with and then expanded out into a good story about Interesting characters are caught up in war, rebellion, conflict and politics. Why people rebel, how they forget the problems of the past, greed, violence and corruption are all themes in this book.

The story moves back and forward along the timeline revealing the truth of past events bit by bit keeping you guess what is going to happen next almost like a mystery book, letting you try to figure out how and why things are happening or what facts you are missing if you want

The world is interesting, all sorts of advanced sci-fi tech and being based in a future China it is a fascinating view into a very different world than most books I listen to

Narration Leanne Yau’s narration is solid and the characters have unique voices. They are equally as skilled with narrating the story, actions and events as with breathing life and personality into the characters. One thing that people may or may not like is the echo effect from inner thoughts or mental communications

OverallI enjoyed this book and I am interested to see what happens next as this series decently has the potential to be something special.

I am happy with the time I spent listening to this book.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

.Fire and Jasmine.You are in for a treat!

Outstanding,Complex,fantastical and even educational.I didn't get bored for an instant. Never a sense of padding, or randomness in the plot. Indeed, it takes a turn I didn't see coming. With hindsight, there was some foreshadowing, but it was either too subtle, or I was too engrossed to notice it. Love all the characters- even the not so nice ones become increasingly interesting as the series moves on. Just when you think you have it all figured out, a curved ball gets thrown.Very well narrated too. Earlier reviews suggest a not-so-great narrator....the books must surely have been redone because I'm super-fussy when it comes to narration, and I couldn't fault this. Leanne Lea's work was beautiful.Really looking forward to the next book in the series......it promises to be a good one!Daniel Jeffries intelligence shines through in this creative work , very impressing and awe-inspiering.I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.I received this title for free in exchange for an unbiased review.As always this is my honest opinion .

Sort by:

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

4 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

Zoe

10-06-17

Wheel of fire

Any additional comments?

Vivid descriptions abound. Setting of China takes a while to get used to it. It is a good book worth listening to.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

pdarnold

11-04-18

Could not finish

I received a free book code for this audiobook via Book Boom for my honest review.

In my rating choice, I had to select a rating as well for Overall and Story in order to leave my comment here on step 3, so I chose middle ground with 3 stars for those choices which is truly unfair to the author since I just could not finish. I've tried several times over the past 3/4 year to continue this book without succeeding. The narrator's cadence was simply too irritating to try and follow. Not her voice, but her rhythm. Tap your finger on the table quickly to the count of 3, then pause and repeat, that will give you an idea of the narration rhythm. She would speak fast, then slow, then loud and then a mumbled whisper, with the slow being a rather quick slow if that makes sense. I thought maybe it was the way she read this book, but after checking samples of other books Yau narrated they're much the same, some less so. I will look to the written form of this book to finish.

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

pjsvoice

20-09-17

Very Confusing

Really struggled with this one. I was immediately lost with all the time, location and character changes. I get that this is book one of a series and it needs to establish things but it was Game of Thrones level in the amount of stuff for the listen to remember.

The narration was good but I hated the vocal effects put on during character's inner thoughts. I don't generally like sound effects in audio books and this was no different. The effect was really jarring.

Here's hoping the rest of the series is easier to follow.

I was provided this copy for free in exchange for an honest review

Overall

2 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

2 out of 5 stars

Trisha

14-09-17

Hard to follow

This was one of the hardest books I've ever tried to follow. Maybe it was that all the characters had names that I'm not used to hearing, but I couldn't keep who is who straight. I tried many different tactics to listen to the book, but every time I had trouble keeping things straight.

Even though parts of the story is fascinating, I personally won't be listening to the next book.

This review copy audiobook was provided by the author/narrator/publisher free of charge.

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

mike s.

20-08-17

Fatal flaw with reverb effect

I’m not sure what this book is trying to be. It’s a dystopian future sci-fi novel set in China, which made me very hopeful. There are several time periods, and the story jumps back and forth to tell the story. Is the author saying totalitarianism is bad? That communism is evil? That all forms of government are the same, and equally bad? All good ideas to explore, but it felt all over the map thematically. The book is well written, but the most interesting characters showed up in the epilogue. Audiobook: The voice artist is very talented, but the experience suffers from a fatal flaw – all internal dialogue uses a reverb effect, as do all political speeches and anytime a character speaks on an electronic device. The effect was painful. It took me out of the story every time. The only time effect worked was when two characters spoke at the same time. This must have been time consuming to produce, so it’s too late to go back and re-record. I am begging the producer: Please, never ever use this effect again. It made me want to give the book one star, but the voice artist and author deserve a better rating. I received this book free through Audiobook Boom.

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

4 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

Stephen Bergquist

16-08-17

Wheel of Fire: The Jasmine Wars

“This audiobook was given by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review "I like the epic, the saga, a story with depth and length. I found that in this story. I also like enough action to carry me into the next page, that often was lacking in this story. This was narrated well, and overall a good listen, it just didn't draw me into the story. I am about to start book two. I'll give a review on it soon.

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

4 out of 5 stars

Marla

04-08-17

Must be a speed listener!

Would you listen to Wheel of Fire again? Why?

No the narrator talks so fast that you almost cannot hear what she is said.

What did you like best about this story?

I might have liked the story if I could have understood the narrator.

Would you be willing to try another one of Leanne Yau’s performances?

No If she is the narrator she is too hard to understand. Listen to any book narrated by her before you purchase.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When the mother dies I think.

Any additional comments?

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Overall

2 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

Lomeraniel

15-07-17

I couldn't stand the narration

This is a dystopia set in China. The story switches from the year 2086 and 2174, and it is mostly about the political changes that happened in 2136, when the country switched from Communism to Democracy. The story focuses on the family of a boy who survived during the hard Communism years, when his parents and brothers were killed by the government, and which will be key in the future years of Democracy. China becomes a world power regarding AI and technological advances, but there is a hoard of nationalists which will put this peaceful and prosper situation in danger.

This book seemed so interesting that I was looking forward to listen to it. But I have to say that I struggled so much to finish it that I am not sure the effort was worth it. It is not an easy book to follow, not really due to the time shifts or the many characters with Chinese names, but due to how little information we get about them. The listener is thrown dozens of character's names with little explanation or background. I had to keep a list to be able to follow the flow, and even like that it was a challenge.

One of the worst issues with this book is the narration. Leanne Yau reads fast, without much pause and little inflection. I tend to listen to books at more than 1X speed to prevent my mind from wandering, but here even at 1X I had the feeling I was missing things. Apart from fast and having a heavy Asian accent, Yau has a very clipped speech. To make things worse, the audio production was subpar. There is some background noise all the time, and this coupled with the clipped speech made impossible to listen to the book in noisy environments. The great things about audiobooks is the possibility they bring to multitask, but with this one it was difficult. I had to pause it while on the metro because I was not able to hear everything correctly. I noticed some little reverb on the narration, which makes me think that Yau's narration booth needs some improvement. She used some echo effect to express characters' thoughts that was way to overdone and broke the rhythm of the story. There were also some important differences in volume, sibilances and pop sounds.

I liked the idea of having a narrator of Asian origin to set the atmosphere like with The Burn Zone, but this time it did not work. I wish the best to Leanne Yau, but I would recommend her to invest on improving her performance, booth, and technical skills.

I got quite upset about this book. This was the kind of story that I most enjoy, and within one of my favorite genre. It also felt quite original and I was ready to enjoy the ride. But, for the life of me, I couldn't. It makes me quite sad, because I would like to continue this series but I do not have the time to read regular books nowadays, but I just can't stand how this narration was done. If another audio edition gets released in the future I will definitely go for it.

I received a copy of this book in audio format from the narrator in exchange for an honest review.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Overall

1 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

2 out of 5 stars

Joshua

11-07-17

Interesting story premise, but poorly arranged

What disappointed you about Wheel of Fire?

The book starts out with a projection of a repugnance for all things Chinese, this latter tones down to a more general anti-government sentiment. The book is difficult to fallow, this is do in part to the numerous characters introduced with little correlation or reason for their existence, maybe that will become clearer in latter books. The next detractor is that chapters do not necessarily cover events in chronological order. Well the introduction of AI's and other technology is interesting, there is little to no primer on what various pieces are used for, they are merely names.

The last and most annoying aspect of this audio-book is that there is a mix of English and Chinese used in conversations. There are sections of the audio that were modified using environmental filters to induce a sound tinny or small cavern sounding effect. At no point do we know why this is, but i suspect that it is for the thoughts in ones head.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator has a very limited number of distinguishable voices, male and female voices are more or less the same. At several points during the reading, I felt as though the narrator needed to slow down and pause briefly at the end of a sentence. several of the paragraphs just felt like they were being machine-gunned out.

Few of the characters seemed to develop personalities (if that falls on the narrator the author or both, i don't know)

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Wheel of Fire?

CUT the sound/environmental "thinking to oneself" effect. Use multiple narrators or at least one with a larger range of character-voices.

Any additional comments?

It was a hardship to make it through this book and I'm likely to avoid other audio titles by this author and/or narrator. That being said, I would consider reading a paperback copy of this book in the future.

"I was given a free review copy of this audiobook in exchange for this review."

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

TU

11-07-17

An interesting concept for a cool new series

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

A lot of people complained about the foreign words/phrases throughout the book saying they didn't have an explanation but I felt like I was able to glean the general context with little problem. I actually found them to add to the "feel" of the book and the setting.

The speech of the narrator is clipped and fast, but have you ever spoken to someone whose native language was from an Asian country? I felt it suited the setting of the book as well and contributed to the experience. Granted, it did take a little getting used to, but I didn't feel it was a negative.

So, I really enjoyed the distopian, futuristic, steampunk take on Imperial China and am very much looking forward to the next book in the series.

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